Friday Afternoon Diversion
Jay-Z Announces 2010 Tour Dates. Chicago Not On List.
"Batman" Headline Is a Stretch, But Prison Escape Story Could Be Its Own Movie
Grates To Tear Up Schubas
Chili Cook-Off Countdown
Today's big danger: Texting while walking! Holy moly, is it ever time to be afraid. Particularly of twin bullshit stories, neither of which identify anyone who has actually been injured. To the Sun-Times and the Tribune:
Anecdotal evidence from a 30-something woman
Trib: "Kelly Scheiner of Streeterville had many errands to run... And so, a silver Nordstrom bag draped over her left forearm, she marched north on Michigan Avenue, crossing Illinois Street at a crisp clip, thumbs firing on her BlackBerry....'If someone's [crossing the street] and not looking, it's safer for the pedestrian' to avoid texting. Still Scheiner admitted: 'Of course I do it. I'm pretty careful. I try to be. But I'm sure I've hit someone or something once or twice.'"
S-T: "Cynthia Goodman said she's never hurt herself badly while texting and walking. But the 38-year-old South Sider admits that she bumps into people and trips over things 'all the time' while fiddling with her [phone.]"
Dramatic quote from Northwestern chair of emergency medicine's Dr. James Adams
Trib "'Summers are ruined,' Adams says. 'It's an emerging trend and one that has not anywhere near peaked.'"
S-T "'It's amazing how instinctive it is for people to [text while doing other things],' Adams said. 'Texting is kind of like hearing. It's almost another sense.'"
Some kind of musing on what texting says about us
Trib: "'There's this sense of compressed time—an expectation that we should be able to multitask and disengage from the larger world,' said Mark Reinecke, chief of psychology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. 'We should be in connection with others at all times, and respond to them immediately.'"
S-T"'It used to be people knew how to stroll, and strolling was a peaceful, rejuvenating, happy thing,' [Adams] said. 'Now that people are trying to text and organize and do all that stuff, do people know how to relax anymore?'"
Bonus points
Trib: Article includes an entire section on the neuroscience of multitasking
S-T: Does not use any annoying text puns
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I hope that in the very near future, Ms. Kelly Scheiner of Streeterville is texting whilst running one of her many errands and has a "real time intro" with the front grill of a speeing Mississippi bound Mack Truck that leaves nothing left behind on the street but her
silver Nordstrom bag still draped over her left forearm for shallow mindless consumer posterity.
cartoonish as it may be, i almost ran into a pole once. i felt like an idiot and realized how ridiculous my behavior was.
Gah... texting is the new Fois Gras...
Nice one, Smokes.
Let's just let the herd thin itself out on this one.
A woman was texting and walked right into my stopped (at a stoplight) car). She was jaywalking (I was nowhere near the cross-walk) and it was raining and she had a headphone/earpiece in and she was holding an umbrella. She walked right into my side door and bounced off to the ground. I got out and asked if she was ok, to which her response was to start yelling about how "She should sue me". The guy behind me said "I'll be a witness! She's a dumbass!"
Technology simply allows idiots to be idiots with great efficiency.
I blame the Qwerty keyboard.
Next law to be implimented in 2009: citations for improperly tied shoes.
Seriously, does anyone remember common sense anymore?
I hate trixies and hipsters who text while drinking sickly sweet "coffee" beverages from starbucks or metropolis.
I really hate it when they try to walk into Filter only to discover its a bank of america now.