Definitely one of my “feel good” songs is “Love it When You Call” by The Feeling, a band I learned of through a friend Dan in the UK. They’re pop/rock, but just enough in-between both not to lean one way or the other too much. It also doesn’t hurt that the lead singer is queer and adorable! But this tune always has me smiling and bopping my head on my morning metro commute. I’m not really interested in Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but put some songs like this in and I might be.

I also think about it a lot when I hear news of the iPhone. I had an IM conversation with James yesterday about people and the phone. Most of us are starting not to care for the telephone as a means of communication, some are already calling for the death of voicemail. When I saw the video of the reporter trying to heckle people queued up for the iPhone, I wondered if a more zinging question on his part would have been, “Have you ever used your phone to call someone?”

I love hearing from friends and even some family and while instant messenger is ok, “LOL” seems much better when you can actually hear the person laughing. I know a lot of people that don’t care for using the phone, which makes me wonder how they conduct any kind of business. I used to hesitate to call people because I’d think I was bothering them, but now I figure they’re enough of an adult to tell me when it isn’t a good time to talk. I just don’t think I’m ready to see the advance of technology herald the death of the phone conversation.

On a lighter note, there’s been a bit of a bumper crop of babies among my friends in recent months (and days — Congratulations Felissa and Neil!) so maybe this primer is a good thing. Baby’s First Internet by Kevin Fanning & Kean Soo. — Not sure how to explain the internet to your young ones? Presenting a series of nursery rhymes to teach children how to comport themselves on the online. I think they would do well to create a real book from that!

From OpenTable.com:

DC Restaurant Week
Gourmet Prix-Fixe Menus
August 11-17, 2008

Enjoy special three-course, prix fixe menus at some of the city’s best restaurants.

Pricing: $20.08 lunches, $3035.08 dinners; prices are per person and do not include beverage, tax or gratuity

DC’s tourism site doesn’t have the list of restaurants up yet, but the official announcement date is July 23. I’m pretty sure that OpenTable’s list of participating venues is accurate though. Some sources are saying the dinner cost may be $35.08, which wouldn’t be in line with previous years, but could be a nod to our we’re-not-in-a-recession.

I’ve gotten co-workers to head out for an upscale group lunch before and taken advantage of at least one dinner out when Restaurant Week rolls around. Tables at “popular” dining times can go fast, so flexibility is advised. If there’s a place you’ve been itching to try, Restaurant Week is a good way to test the waters and get a nice reasonably priced night out.

Update: The Washington Post has a full list of restaurants.

Update 2: $35.08 for dinner is confirmed.

Gizmo Lovers and Dave Zatz both reported today on the TiVo & Amazon team-up to enable on-screen product purchasing:

By teaming with Amazon.com, TiVo enables viewers to purchase products related to their favorite TV shows or that they’ve seen in TV ads without leaving their couch. For example, if a guest on the Daily Show or Oprah has a new book, CD, or DVD out, you can purchase it on Amazon.com using your TiVo remote without missing a second of TV, whether the viewer is watching live or recorded. The viewer with an impulse can buy right away and no longer needs to remember to do so the next time they are at their PC.

The concept of shopping via TV is nothing new, obviously, but having the products offered by a (r)e-tailer that I actually trust? That could be a problem. Of course I don’t watch talk shows, so I’m safe for now at least. The NYT reports on TiVo potentially sharing this technology with other companies that have already integrated a version of their software into set-top boxes.

If this ever makes it to the Food Network or America’s Test Kitchen on PBS? I’m doomed.

The Wordpress for iPhone application is live and quite handy, actually. I doubt it can make me a great iPhone typist but it doesn’t appear to rely on being connected to a signal to work. You can’t edit previous online posts without a signal, however. It does hold local drafts in the application and like some other apps can use the iPhone’s camera and photo library to add pictures to your post, automatically added to the end of the entry. It offers a preview mode, but that is also limited when you’re offline.

I’m just playing around with it this morning since I haven’t anything to really write about. Though that can easily change with a metro ride.

I got stuck without a seat for a few stops and my 1-thumb typing sucks with this thing. But I think they did a good job on the app. Even though it was “coming soon” for a while after the iTunes app store opened, it seems like it was worth the wait.

Ed. Note: I did do some editing when I got to the office, since I like my URLs pretty now with just the post number and it uploaded the photos just fine, but stuck them all right after the post, one after the other. With no cut & paste, this app is definitely for quick no-frills entries when you’re outside the range of a cell/wifi signal. But it does the job and is perfect for something on the go when you plan to polish up an entry later on at a computer.

Any geek worth their salt should know why getting this catalog/junk mail today made me laugh at first, and then feel a bit sad. It also made me wonder what the hell mailing list my address got stuck on.

Also this is an excellent 3 minute video on How To Tell People They Sound Racist. I love the ‘what they did’ vs. ‘what they are’ concept, and his wallet analogy is brilliant.