Sobering

Recently, a family situation required that my sister, my husband, and I be in three different states and in constant motion and communication. Far from being teenagers, we texted a lot. And drove a lot. And even though we tried to avoid doing so, we occasionally texted while driving. A film on AT&T's siteshows that it was dumb luck that we didn't have another dire family situation in the form of an accident. Driving while texting can be as dangerous as driving drunk. Sobering.

Stamps for different kinds of post

The beleaguered Post Office is said to be cutting back, but it hasn't cut back on intelligent, informative, and well-designed stamps. I was tickled to see the "Pioneers of Industrial Design" commemoratives, which pay homage to some of the designers of many of America's iconic and useful objects. The history on the back of the stamps is great as well. I'm going to have a hard time using these stamps as postage.

You could say that some of the products shown on the stamps are like industrial equivalents of Proust's madeleines. Seeing a Brownie camera or Fiesta pitchers catapults me (a designer of a certain age, admittedly) into a love of consumer goods I didn't know I had.

Just my Type

You and your student will be proud to see that a book reviewed in the NYTimes today talks about that pesky Papyrussed title for "avatar."

County Fair Truck

We All Scream for Ice Cream