My head hurts

Usually, I spend some time on the weekend doing a bit of Pink Slip-ping - writing a few posts (sometimes even five of them, a full week's worth).

This past weekend I guess I was in slacker mode.

Not that the usual array of topics didn't present itself.

After all, just this weekend I read that Ruthie Madoff's hairdresser has tossed her out as a customer, after more than 10 years of doing her baby blonde "highlights" (highlights being the euphemism for dye-job for women over the age of 50). Frankly, I found this pretty shameful on the part of the hairdresser.  Sure, we all want to know what Ruthie knew and when she knew it, and no doubt the folks her husband bilked didn't want to see her in the next chair when they were getting their foils wrapped. Still, it's hard to believe that the hairdresser couldn't have found some time - early or late - when he could have "done" Ruthie.

Her florist, and a favorite restaurant have also dumped her. I get how the restaurant can get away with this, meeting her at the door, glancing at the empty tables and saying, 'Sorry, we don't have any room...'  But can a florist look you in the eye and say that every last bloom in the place is spoken for.

So there was Ruthie...

Then I stumbled on a video done by a French filmmaker that showed how the derelict land in Detroit is going back to nature. At least that's what I think it's going to show. I got halfway through and found it way too eerie and not a little depressing. I will return, however. (To the video, not to Detroit, where I've actually never been. And there doesn't appear to be any reason now.) I feel a treatise on post-industrial America coming up.

Make that post-industrial Rust Belt America. I also saw an article over the weekend about how the few remaining manufacturers in some Rust Belt cities are fleeing to the South. Who wants to be the last person to turn out the lights in Dayton? Or run into a moose on their commute into downtown Detroit.

Of course, the Great Southward Migration will no doubt cease and desist when the great south heats (and dries) up a bit more, and us Northerners will be sitting on aquifer that will be as valuable as bubblin' crude was to the Beverly Hillbillies.  (Is it ours, by the way, or can the Dry Belt just stick straws in it and suck it out?)

And one of the interesting things that emerges in the commentary on the North going South is those who fear that the red states will turn blue, as those damned liberals who ruined their states will proceed to ruin the heaven on earth that is Alabama.

All of this was really starting to hurt my head.

What I really wanted to do was read about something that had nothing to do with business or the economy, while eating Popsicle.

Then my niece Molly came to my topic rescue.

Molly is 12 1/2 and we were hanging out with her while her parents went to a party.

Our on-demand movie, Doubt, had just ended - note to anyone who went to parochial school in the 1960's: this is a deeply disturbing film that completely captures the look and, more importantly, the feel of those days - and Molly happened upon my 10 year old Palm Pilot.

The Palm Pilot hasn't seen a lot of use lately.

My phone numbers are on my cell, my calendar lives between Outlook and paper. (There's still something to be said for a good, old-fashioned, month-at-a-glance calendar.)

I have absolutely been in the market for a Blackberry since forever - just haven't gotten around to it.

But, frankly, the day is coming and coming soon.

I've been embarrassed to trot the Palm out at meetings. If I'm with my tech clients, they look at me as if I'd taken out a quill pen and parchment. If I'm with non-tech folks, I'm increasingly brought up short by finding that even the lowest of the tech low seem to have a Blackberry or other smartphone these days.

My trusty old Palm was in plane sight because I'd been looking up an address.

Molly was amused and delighted to find it - the equivalent, I suppose, of me coming across a wind-up Victrola with horn, or a stereopticon, in some relative's house. Or spotting a Studebaker or Hudson on the road. Ahh-ooooooo-gah!

Molly has a cell phone, an iTouch, and a Nintendo DS (the latter two pieces of electronic-a she bought out of her own savings, thank you very much; the cell phone was a Christmas gift). She's already talking iPhone.

Me, I need to figure out whether to go Storm or Curve.

Curve's probably easier, since it's got the "real" keyboard. but I like the Storm's screen real estate. (At least I think I've got this right. I guess I'll figure out which is which at the Verizon store.)

I'm never an early adopter, but I'm usually not this late, either.

Better get me one of them smartphones before I really start feeling as if I'm carrying around a Bakelite dial phone and a paper calendar the size of a Gutenberg Bible.

Plus we need a new wireless router to replace the hoary Linksys that is the tech equivalent of two Donald Duck juice cans and a hank of string.

All this stuff in the news... All these decisions to make about technology...

No wonder my head hurts.

The only good news is that my hairdresser is still doing my "highlights" for me.