My Smart Phone is Smarter Than Me

Google Droid by HTC via Gizmodo

My new boss is a Droid, and he’s a real badass. During waking hours, he has me doing flips and scrolls and refreshes every 10 minutes. He goes almost everywhere with me. And I’ll do anything to keep him fed and energized.

Of course I’m talking about my new Smart Phone, a Droid Eris. Amid the plethora of iPod-like devices available these days, I chose to outfit myself with this little unit from lesser-known device maker HTC because it works on Verizon and the price was right. And I’ve always been a bit of a fan of the underdog, which oddly in this case is Google to Apple’s perfect little iPhone.

Are we getting dumber as our phones get smarter?
No matter what model smart phone you carry, it all begs the questions, what does it mean for the future of mankind?

We’ll be late to less meetings for one thing. And we’ll never fall behind on our Facebook News Feed. We’ll always know where we are on a map, even when we’re still lost. Empty moments can be filled with … video games. And we can take a blurry photo or video at any moment (and a sharp one sometimes).

In fact, we can or will be able to do just about anything with a smart phone in due time, from scanning bar codes at the grocery store to interacting with books and magazines to ordering a pizza. If you can think of it, there’s probably an app for it.

The only thing I can’t do so well with it is type; I just can’t get used to that finger pecking. So unless you’re interested in 5 word blog posts with every word misspelled, we’ll continue updating Weekndr on our trusty desktop iMac.

Weekndr Recipe: Wrapped in Bacon

Bacon-wrapped breadsticks, sprinkled with brown sugar (not shown), and baked for about 35 min. at 350 degrees. Sorry, we ate them all before we could snap a final photo.

Name us a food that can’t be wrapped in bacon, sprinkled with brown sugar, and baked to a sweet and crispy perfection? Can’t do it, can you. We’re not big meat eaters but there’s something about crispy bacon hors d’oeuvres that brings out the carnivore in even the toughest holdouts.

Mrs. Weekndr whipped up this easy recipe for two holiday parties last month. She picked it up during a catering gig a few years ago where, according to lore, party guests inhaled them at record speeds. They were equally devoured by our party guests, including one diet-conscious, animal-loving friend who finally broke down for a bite after much protest.

For these pictured we used crispy bread sticks, but we also made them with “homemade” wheat breadsticks prepared by cutting slices of wheatbread into sticks and then toasting until crispy. Once wrapped with one-half of a bacon strip and placed on a baking sheet, sprinkle with brown sugar and bake for about 30 min. at 350 degrees.

I have to say I preferred the wheat bread version over the crispy sticks. The spongy toast soaked up the bacon fat and sugar better than the hard, white-flour sticks, adding more depth to each bite. I apologize but we ate the entire batch before anyone could snap a photo of the finished product so you’ll have to use your imagination or make them for yourself.

P.S. If you’re obsessed with bacon, here’s a list of blogs and articles you might enjoy: 1. The Bacon Explosion, via NYTimes.com; 2. The Bacon Unwrapped blog. 3. Bacon is Dead! Long Live Bacon! from Salon.com; 4. Reactions to bacon-haters on the Bacon Today blog.