New Use for an iPod

The highlight of my holiday weekend was Saturday's visit to the Modigliani exhibit at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. The paintings were fabulous but the audio guide was tedious. I can appreciate the brilliant plan of individuals who, according to a recent article in the NYT, are offering up "unauthorized" art museum exhibition commentary via downloadable MP3 files.

Almost 20 years ago I traveled to the Soviet Union on a tour sponsored by a professor at the small private college in the town where I lived. My traveling companions were mostly affluent undergraduate students. I remembered being appalled that, invariably, they listened to their Sony Walkmen in the Pushkin and the Hermitage while they were viewing some of the greatest treasures of art. Today, I would be less harsh in my judgement. If I were to witness a museum goer sporting an iPod, I would assume he/she is appropriately engaged in the exhibit and is listening to an unofficial audio guide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/28/arts/design/28podc.html?th&emc=th

Geek Lite: A Mozilla Firefox Fan

Using Firefox as my browser makes me feel like an "internet insider"--sort of Geek Lite. This is true even though millions have joined me in making the switch. I won't list the advantages of this newish browser here. Instead, I will tell you about its best feature: Firefox has tabbed browsing. This permits you to right click on url's to create tabs at the top of the page to acommodate multiple files loading simultaniously. This is a true time saver for those of us with dial-up connections.

You can download Firefox 1.0 at www.getfirefox.com.

(Thanks, Steve, for being a Firefox missionary and converting me.)

Welcome

On the occasion of my first post to my own blog, I hereby welcome myself to the blogosphere. May my days be cheery and bright, and may all of my opinions be right!