I’m sure we all could create just as many entries as there are over on Unphotographable about the pictures we didn’t take, but one I didn’t take this morning triggered a memory from years ago.

I was waiting on the light to cross 16th Street and I saw one of our neighborhood beggars. She’s a more recognizable character since she’s always on crutches and has no fear about heading out into (usually stopped) traffic to go from window to window asking for a little help. When I first saw her, she was a figure of pity, but now it’s more annoyance because she stands out in the street, sometimes blocking traffic and buses to panhandle.

So this morning I’m waiting to cross and I see her standing, on her crutches, next to the bus shelter across the road. She’s not begging from passing cars this morning, she’s fiddling with something in her hands. I look closer and she’s counting a rather sizable wad of cash. I don’t know if they were big or small bills, but with the size of that roll, it didn’t matter. I tried to get my camera on her, but cars kept passing and she kept looking up and around and the last thing I needed was a “crippled” homeless woman on my case before going to work.

It took me back…

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!

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.

I have never truly been a fan of anything Joss Whedon put out, mostly because I just never got started on things, and by the time everyone was having their fanboygasms about the shows, they were well into their arcs or … off the air and not yet released on DVD. So I never got into Buffy, Angel or Firefly and I still ain’t seen Serenity. What I’ve heard about his new show doesn’t particularly interest me, nor was I impressed by his writing stints on various comic titles. Though I do admit to being impressed by him letting the Buffy/Angel comic books be official canon and continuity for the now off-the-air series.

Just about every site has been linking to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day (from that fantastic and surreal Cheetos commercial). It’s not really sing-along, unless you’ve watched it a million times to know the words, there ain’t no bouncing ball, but it’s very funny. Norman watched it through before me and he suggested that a line from this scene would be his new quote:

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It’s in three acts, all online until midnight Sunday July 20, also available on iTunes right now. After it goes offline, it will be coming out as a DVD and there will be details about the DVD at Comic Con. One of these years I’m going to have to make it out there for that… and Pride, of course.