If you had told me five years ago that I would be cuddling with my computer on a regular basis I probably would’ve dismissed you as crazy. Sure, I was already making a full-time living off of web writing which meant that I used my computer all of the time but I considered it a tool of the job. I certainly didn’t think of it as something to cuddle up with.

These days I cuddle up with my computer all of the time. What changed? A lot:

• Laptops are more cozy to cuddle up with. The biggest difference between then and now is probably that I use a laptop more often than I use my desktop. Sure, I have a LTR with my desktop computer which is where I save and store everything. But I can pull my laptop into bed with me, take it on vacations, have it there at all times. It’s much easier to cuddle up with it.
• Social media. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on social networking sites five years ago. Sure I was active on a few but not like I am today. These days, social media makes it so that my computer is a friend. Or rather it gives me access to friends which makes it appealing to cuddle up with it. At the start of a new day or the end of a long one, it’s nice to pull my computer into my lap and reach out to the world beyond its screen.
• It’s my main source of entertainment. Five years ago I had a television set and preferred going to the arcade to play video games. These days my computer is my main source of entertainment. I love Internet TV and streaming movies. It’s no longer just a work tool; it’s my companion for an at-home movie date. And it’s not bad for playing video games with either.
• My personal blogging has grown. I used to only blog for clients. These days I blog for myself as well. I certainly prefer to journal in a notebook but I do have to admit that the confessional style of blogs is appealing as well. It gives me more of a connection with my computer than I had years ago.

Tags: change, computers, society, Technology, web 2.0

So I have just learned about something called The Big Green Egg that has me totally fascinated. The product itself is a really unique type of barbecue grill that I do find interesting. However, what I’m truly finding intruiging is that there is a group of enthusiasts for this product that have really grown up around it to support it as a community.

First things first, what’s the product? Well, The Big Green Egg is a charcoal barbecue used for both smoking and grilling of food outdoors. What’s particularly cool about this product is that you can purchase some add-on accessories that also turn it into an outdoor oven. That means that you can grill steak and bake bread from the same device all while enjoying your backyard. Cool stuff.

In fact, this is so cool that the product has a huge following. People who adore the Big Green Egg actually call themselves (and others like them) “eggheads“. They communicate with one another to share stories about their use of the Big Green Egg along with providing tips, suggestions and recipes for one another. They frequently communicate through online groups and forums.

However, a lot of eggheads take their interest even further than this. They attend conventions and festivals about the Big Green Egg. The main feature event is called Eggtoberfest. It happens every year in Georgia where the headquarters of the The Big Green Egg company are located. Over 1500 people have been known to attend the event in one year. Many of these people also attend smaller festivals called EggFests; there are hundreds of these festivals around the globe.

Why do I find this interesting? It’s not because I’m a fan of the The Big Green egg, per se, although it does sound like a cool machine. Instead, I’m really just fascinated by the things that people get passionate about. I, personally, can’t imagine getting so excited about a product like this that I would travel to attend an event to talk about it. But then, I’ve been known to attend Blogger Meetups, MacWorld and burlesque festivals - interests which would all probably baffle the Eggheads.

How is it that we come by our passions? Maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that there is a like-minded community of people for almost every possible interest that you might have. I think it’s terrific if you can find that community no matter what it is that you get passionate about!

Tags: big green egg, eggheads, people, society, the big green egg

I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about coupons. I think that coupons are a great way for people to save money on the items that they buy regularly. I also think that that there is some interesting social history around coupons. (Does anyone get nostalgic thinking about clipping coupons with Mom when you were a kid?!) But what I’m thinking more and more about coupons is that the in-store, printable, clipped-out coupons that most people think of when they think of couponing are really totally inefficient and unproductive in today’s society.

There have been a lot of problems reported with printable coupons recently. There are huge problems with coupon fraud which exist primarily because criminals are able to easily manipulate printable coupons to get more money back than the manufacturer wants to allot. There are also problems with too many people trying to print out coupons and then creating in-store problems when they all flood into the store at the same time.

So what’s the solution? Technology seems to be changing in a way that will allow us to avoid use of in-store coupons in the future but to still save money with coupon deals. We already see this happening in the form of online promo codes which let you enter the code into your online shopping sites to get savings. There is a lot less trouble with coupon fraud using these types of coupons and of course you avoid the issue of shopping in overcrowded stores that run out of the products they’ve issued coupons for.

But what about when you do want to shop in stores? I think that coupons may be popular but society is leaning in favor of just offering good overall deals instead of coupon deals. For example, many people have found that they can save just as much money by buying generic store brands of items as they can from buying name brands with coupons. They skip the coupons and still get the savings.

What do you think? Do in-store coupons still make sense or are they going to become a thing of the past?

Tags: coupon codes, coupons, kathryn vercillo, Personal Finance, save money, society, Technology

I recently took a trip back to Tucson. I drove there from San Francisco. That’s a long drive (fourteen or so hours depending on the route that you take) but I had a sibling with me for at least part of the drive each way so it wasn’t so bad.

To be honest, I was kind of excited about driving. I gave up my car when I moved to San Francisco. Since I don’t drive daily anymore, driving has now become fun. The rental car was brand new, it was equipped with satellite radio and I got really lucky with low traffic both ways.

What I didn’t like was the driving that I had to actually do while I was back home. It feels like it takes forever to get anywhere in Tucson. The truth is that it takes me just as long to get places here but that’s because I’m walking here. I’m active and surrounded by interesting sights so it doesn’t feel as time-consuming as just sitting in traffic does.

I still drive. I’m not opposed to cars. However, I’m really glad that I don’t own one anymore!

Check out my top ten reasons to give up your car.

Tags: car, car-free, driving, give up your car, green, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, no car, society, stop driving

I recently did research into the relationship between movies and mobile phones. What I learned from this research is that there are three main ways in which movies and cell phones are linked:

1. People watch movies on their cell phones. More and more phones are getting advanced enough to be capable of watching streaming or downloaded movies. There have been a lot of recent announcements about this link between movies and mobile phones.
2. People film movies on their cell phones. This is just cool. Lots of people use their phone’s video camera to film movies. There are film festivals specifically for these phone-made films. I love the creativity of it!
3. The movie industry markets on phones. There are tons of different marketing ploys used by movie promoters that involve mobile phones include interactive mobile advertising.

Are there other links between cell phones and movies that I’m forgetting?

Tags: art, cell phones, entertainment, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, movies, society, Technology, Wireless

There’s a reason that they call them smartphones. Today’s advanced mobile phones serve as mini-computers that can take a lot of things off of your mind. You hardly have to remember anything on your own because you can program your phone to remember things for you.

The most obvious example of this is phone numbers. It used to be that people memorized the phone numbers that they called most often. Most people today memorize one or two numbers in case of an emergency and simply let their phones remember the rest.

The fact that we rely on our phones to remember things could mean that we’re thinking less than we used to. We simply don’t have to stretch our brain muscles so much anymore because we’ve got a world of helpful information at our fingertips.

If we’re not thinking as much as before then we run the chance that we’re losing our ability to utilize common sense. A lot of people are lost without their phones – they can’t calculate tips or find their way around a strange location without mobile applications to guide them.

Is your cell phone doing your thinking for you?

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, society, Technology

Remember when Mom or Grandma used to get out the Sunday paper and clip out coupons. She probably organized them in some sort of envelope or fancy organizer and then took them to the store with her when she did her grocery shopping. Although there are still people out there using coupons like this today, it really doesn’t make sense any more to rely on these printed types of coupons to save money.

Printed coupons just don’t have the benefits that they used to have for most people. For one thing, it has been shown that you can probably save as much or more money by shopping for store brands instead of buying name brands using a coupon. More importantly, the whole process of printing coupons (whether the manufacturer prints them or you do it yourself at home) is time-consuming and costly and it makes saving money in this way inefficient.

Online discount codes make sense in today’s society. Mobile phone coupons make sense in today’s society. But printed coupons just don’t make a lot of sense anymore.

Tags: coupons, Frugal Living, kathryn vercillo, save money, society, Technology

I went to a really fun local circus show not that long ago. Everything about the show was great but I have to admit that one of my very favorite parts was before the show even began when a clown came around and paitned my face with a beautiful little flower design.

I love to get my face painted. That probably sounds silly since I’m all grown up and face painting is for kids right? Well, I think that we should all try to capture the magic and fun of childhood as often as we can and face painting does that for me. I think it’s fun. And beautiful. And filled with fantasy.

Besides, did you know that face painting wasn’t always for kids? In fact, the history of face painting is a really long one and only the last two or three decades of it involve face painting as a fun activity for children. Prior to that, face painting was used by adults for reasons including spiritual ceremonies, entertainment, inclusion in sports activities, tribal affiliation symbolism and camouflage purposes for war and hunting.

Those are some pretty intense things to think about considering how fun face painting is today!

Tags: children, culture, face paint history, face painting, history, history of face painting, hub pages, kathryn vercillo, society

I’ve been really lucky in the past few years in that I have made a large number of great new friends. I’m not just talking about the people that I kind of know and see around. I’m talking about good friends who are really there for me.

It wasn’t always this way. I’ve often found it difficult to make new friends as an adult. Since I work from home, figuring out where to meet new people is tough. And since I’m busy, it’s hard to make the time that you need to make in order to really build up friendships.

But I’ve been successful at it lately and I’ve benefitted from that greatly. Here are some tidbits of info on how I’ve managed to make new friends:

• Met people through the Internet. Whether it’s Craigslist or Meetup.com or just via commenting on the blogs of local bloggers, I’ve used the Internet to make that initial connection. It’s just so much easier than approaching someone in a coffee shop, I think.
• Found things I like to do. It helps to have some shared activity when making new friends so I find things that I like to do and then invite along new people that I want to be better friends with.
• Said yes when people invited me to things. The more you go out, the more chance you have of making new friends, right?
• Maintained connections online. I find that sites like Facebook and chat conversations on AIM make it easy to really trade information and get to know someone even when you can’t get together in person all of the time. It’s not a substitute for real face-to-face connecting but it’s definitely a great supplement.
• Shared myself openly. The more open and honest I am about who I am and what’s going on with me, the stronger the connections that I’ve been able to make with others.

What else are people doing to make new friends as adults?

Tags: ehow, friendship, kathryn vercillo, meeting people, Relationships, socializing, society