I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

I'm at work, on my break, attempting to update on my sort of new tablet (I've had it for about a month). It's a Nexus 7, which means we're still not quite an Apple-only family, but overall it works for what I want to do: read books, download apps, occasionally edit stuff, scribble ideas down.  I actually prefer an actual notebook for that last, but when you're out running around, it's nice to not have a lot of extra stuff.

Of course, I say that having been lugging a copy of Salman Rushdie's memoir, Joseph Anton, around for two months (I've been reading that book longer than I've owned this tablet).  It's good, but it's hard to read for long periods. Especially if you want to keep your overall faith in humanity.

I've been hearing good things from people who have read "The Drowned Man" at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which is nice (and if you haven't read it yet, go read it, this is my unsubtle hint!).

I will say, the cut and paste on this thing is nicer than my iPhone, though touchscreen keyboards remain impish tools of the devil.

And now, back to work I go. Summer in the college library: count the shadows.

All right. So Z. had a hangnail, and I was cutting it off with our manicure scissors. Now, I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep, and I accidentally poke him with the scissors (not hard, but where his toe is tender).

Z: Ow. Jeeesus.

L: What?

Z: Jesus. It's what you say when things hurt.*

L: I don't think you should be saying that, though.

Z: Why? Daddy says it all the time.

(At this point, Scott jumped in with an explanation, because I was so space-ily bemused at the fact that Z had come out with Daddy says it that I never actually formulated an answer.)

*This is what happens when the atheist and the agnostic have a kid. That and, "God lives at the center of the earth."

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I posted this on Google+, too, because you can, apparently, do blog-post-length entries over there! (My experiments in this regard have been relatively short thus far.) I won't be leaving LJ anytime soon, though, because, a) I want to stick it to the Russians and their DOS attacks, and b) Google+ doesn't have cool tags and stuff.

That said, let me reiterate that I will never cross-post other people's content to any other platform, because that would be rude.

Also, if you are one of the people to whom I sent G+ invites, and you have not set up an account, AND you're getting email about my posting on G+ ... let me know if it's bugging you, because there is a setting that I think I've got situated, but who knows with computers. They want to kill us, you know.

And now, I am off to melt into a puddle of sleep-deprived goo. As soon as I scribble some notes on the new Corwyn Teachout story. (Let's hope I can read them tomorrow.)

So my friend who recently started calling me a hipster* sent me a Google+ invite. And because apparently they shut the thing down every so often even when you have an invite, I set it up today.

For those of you who don't know**, Google+ is Google's answer to Facebook. I guess the main draw is supposed to be that you divide your contacts into "circles," and then you can easily filter who sees what on your profile without anyone knowing what circle they're in. Now, I am of the school of "If you don't want anyone to know about it, don't put it on the internet," but I can see the appeal, here.

So yeah, that's not the appeal for me so much--really, I signed up for it to find out what it is. And after an hour or so of playing, I have to say I like it. It's prettier than Facebook. It's funnier than Facebook***. And it's the first social networking site I've joined that seems to assume I'm an adult and not in my 20s (see *** below). In addition, the privacy controls are right there, easy to figure out and find, and I like that a lot.

Anyway, if you want an invite, let me know.

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So, related to this, sort of.

I have an iGoogle homepage that I like quite a bit, overall. I an NPR widget and my Gmail there, along with some other stuff. It's fine and doesn't annoy me like whatever the other homepage was I used to have (no, I don't remember; I just remember it annoyed me).

My friend who calls me a hipster uses Google Docs for a lot of her work backups. The past week or so, she's been working with them at work, and I've been watching over her shoulder and getting pretty intrigued. I have had a couple of instances of "Holy cats, I forgot my jump drive!" at work, and that would be handy. So on my ever-expanding to-do list has been "Play with Google Docs."

Now I have this Google+ thing to play with, and I started looking at the top bar thing, and got to playing with Google Reader. Which would be really neat if I could configure it the way I want--which is to put all my online fiction sites in one spot--but it doesn't seem like it works that way. Now I can add "Play with Reader" to my list, as well.

And yes, I am well aware that Google is another big internet corporation, and I have heard stories galore about how they fall short of their "Don't Be Evil" mantra. I'm not really planning to give them any information I wouldn't give Facebook or anything. But there's a lure to organizational tools that I cannot deny ...

So, yeah. Time to get my kid to bed because my husband has a thousand-yard stare that looks very familiar.

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*I use a Mac. I haven't used a PC at home since ... 2004? That's why.

**I didn't know what it was until a couple of days ago--Scott looked at me like I was the cutest thing ever when I asked him if he knew what Google+ was.

***Explaining the "Family" circle: "Your close and extended family, with as many or as few in-laws as you want."