"The new phone book is here!"

Few of us ever got as excited as Steve Martin's character did in The Jerk at the arrival of the new phone book (here is the scene recreated in the Sims!?).

That said, for years we have dutifully brought in the new phone book and recycled out the old one.

Not this year. This year, I recycled it the day it arrived.

What's the point in keeping it? We never use it.

How much longer will they keep printing them? If I need a number, I can go online and get it easier and quicker. Not at a computer? Google's free service (1-800-GOOG-411) is just as good as the "411 and more" service provided by my cellphone carrier - and it is free.

When is the last time you actually saw a print encyclopedia? (don't count garage sales!). An essential part of every book report I ever did, the encyclopedia was the guilty purchase of middle-class parents in the '60s and '70s ("You want you child do be smart, don't you Mrs. Jones?"). This staple of my childhood is nowhere to be found today...

How long 'til phone books are in the same boat?

(One interesting sidenote - in our neighborhood, by my count by far the #1 advertisers in the Yellowpages are attorneys who handle personal injury cases.... what does that say about the current demos of phone books? Or at least my part of the world?)

Shes cheating on herself....

There is a very special community on our spectacular divorce site. (Well, we think its spectacular).

Anyway, we do enjoy a terrific community of users. We regularly see difficult, real world issues - abandonment, cheating, the breakdown of marriages. Tough stuff. We try to be respectful in the way we handle everything - it is what people deserve and at the end of the day, these are people's lives!

A recent post caught my eye is being unusual and something that could only happen in today's modern world. A woman's husband is cheating on her - but with her! I'll let her describe the situation.

We wish the family well - and hope things work out for them.

Chrome - Google's new browser

I have been playing around with Chrome, Google's new browser.

First, like other Google products I use, I like it.  So far my favorite aspect is that its super sleek design gets more of a page above the fold, which I think is important.  You could always do this with other browsers, but it was hard, not the default, and still not as small as this.  It seems designed to be super-fast (also a huge win to me). 

One thing - it doesn't accept the Google toolbar? (I know, this would be expanding the area I thought was too big on other browsers, but).  That seems um, super stupid.....  What if I want to see page rank, etc? I'm trying to picture the conversation at Google justifying that ("People don't need Page Rank or one-click access to Google Maps, lets just ship the thing, and if enough complain, we can add it later...")

Argh.