Pixel Posybytes of life

Finding this article made me smile as I lazed about in bed this morning until after 11 AM. I argued with my husband that if I had my way no one would get up much before noon. He felt half the day was wasted. But I’ve always been at my most creative and productive after midnight and would prefer a daily 2-3 AM bedtime with a 10ish or later wake up. Unfortunately my cube job keeps me from sticking to that schedule. Heh… may not have to worry about that soon…

Apparently this study by a psychologist named Satoshi Kanazawa found that to be a night owl you have to have a high enough intelligence to over-ride the natural instinct that tells us to go to bed when it’s dark and wake up when it’s light out.

Here’s the IQ and correlating average sleep times from his study:

Night Lights

Bedtimes and wake-up times for Americans in their 20s by IQ.

Very Dull (IQ < 75)

Weekday: 11:41 P.M.-7:20 A.M.

Weekend: 12:35 A.M.-10:09 A.M.

Normal (90 < IQ < 110)

Weekday: 12:10 A.M.-7:32 A.M.

Weekend: 1:13 A.M.-10:14 A.M.

Very Bright (IQ > 125)

Weekday: 12:29 A.M.-7:52 A.M.

Weekend: 1:44 A.M.-11:07 A.M.

On a side note… Owls were one of my maternal grandmother’s favorite things. I only knew her for 4 years, most of which I was a baby, but I always think of her when I see an owl.

Maybe it is just me, but Target’s new ad campaign leaves me feeling awkward for them.

One shows a young couple on a date and the enthusiastic guy hands the girl he’s hoping to impress a gift. She opens the box to find a necklace and her face falls while saying something like, “Oh, I didn’t think we were there yet.” I assume she is implying that he spent way more than what she felt the relationship was worth? Nice. The guy awkwardly stumbles over his words with a “don’t worry it wasn’t that much.” She says okay good… and they are left staring at each other with awkward smiles. Message received, Target gifts can ruin your budding relationship.

Another ad shows a young family opening gifts from Santa. The mom opens her gift to reveal a new flat screen TV. Dad’s eyes widen in surprise and through his tense fake smile for the kids says, “I thought Santa was scaling back due to the recession this year?” Mom responds that Santa shopped smartly this year. Dad tries to make another comment and mom cuts him off with a strong Santa doesn’t need any help doing his job. Again they stare at each other with tense smiles for the children.  So now gifts from Target can cause strain in your marriage. Awesome.

There is another family Christmas gift opening ad, where the little girl opens a doll and suddenly looks super sad. Her parents ask, “Isn’t that what you wanted?” The little girl starts to confess that it’s all just too much, she was a bad girl this year and starts to spill all the things she has done wrong. Her parents stare at her blankly before stopping her with a, “it’s okay, we really didn’t spend that much.” This one is better than the others, but it just falls short of funny.

I realize they are trying to say that Target gifts seem expensive, but they are actually affordable.  I just don’t think leaving viewers feeling bad for the people in the ad is the way to go. They should go back to the happy shiny people ads like Gap and Old Navy. If I’m going to buy meaningless crap, then I want the gift receiver to feel good about it.

Thanksgiving is that time of year to remind ourselves what we’re thankful for. So in a similiar spirit, how about sharing the best compliment you’ve ever received, the one that has stuck with you, maybe even for years.

Mine was given by my photography professor during a class critique.

 He said after studying my photograph for a moment, “Thank you for putting this in the world”.

He wasn’t an easy guy to please and no one in the class really had anything to critique after he said that!

I wish I could show you the photograph, but, and this still sickens me to say, it was accidentally tossed out with what I thought at the time was old unused photo paper. It wasn’t until after garbage day that I remembered I slipped my actual prints into the same package to keep them protected. Sad day.

Anyway, words can be so very powerful and too often we only speak up when their is a problem with someone or something. This turkey day, don’t just go around the table and say what you’re thankful for, but thank someone with a sincere compliment!

Share the compliment that has stuck with you by posting a comment!

I am getting excited to start NanoWriMo next month… anyone else going to join me?

Here are the rules, they are pretty simple:

First sign up at www.nanowrimo.org

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

Last week M, his mom and I were discussing the effect parent blogging will have on children as they age. There are a handful of parents that are able to fully support their families through detailing the raising of their brood. And plenty others that just blog for their own enjoyment and the support they receive from the parent blogging community. And there are even those that are purposely trying to compose something their babies will be able to look through when they are older.

So what do you think? Is this type of record just a very detailed and public baby book, or could it provide emotional fodder for middle school teasing? Just think of being picked on because someone found your mom’s blog postings about raising a bed wetter. Or how about finding a clip of yourself on YouTube that your parents uploaded because it was the first time you went poop in the potty, and someone mass emailed that link to half the school. These private moments and problems are being made public with the help of the Internet. Then again wouldn’t it be fascinating to have insight on what your life was like those first few years where most of us have no memories? Or does the public factor squash that?

The conversation steered towards teens and their lack of self filter on what should and shouldn’t be posted in their social networking profiles. The same can be said of some adults. Cyber bullying, sending naked picture texts and commenting job related frustrations out there for everyone, including employers to read. I had a cyber stalker when I was in college that became a little scary; but I’m sure he was nothing like what I’d find today. (He made a site taking my face from a photo I had online, and used paint, yes the program paint, to draw some crude sexy poses for me.)

M found another article about parent bloggers on CNN today. This one is on if it is ethical for parent bloggers to post about products they receive from companies wanting free publicity in turn, without letting their readers know about the arrangement.

M’s mommy blogger post: http://www.carterpants.com/?p=621

CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/10/mommy.bloggers.ethics/index.html

I was reading through old posts at the Glamour.com blogs, Smitten. Writer Shallon Lester posted about her ultra dorky vision board (pictured), but I don’t think it’s dorky at all… What a lovely visual way to remind yourself of your life ambitions. If you don’t have dreams what other reason do you have to get out of bed in the morning?

So I think I might whip one up for myself, only having a graphic design background I’ll use Illustrator and Photoshop and make it an actual print. Hanging up magazine clippings is a tad too high school for my grown up decorating tastes. However I did steal a lot of my imagery from Google images.

I’m ordering a 10×10 print and sticking this in my bathroom to look at as I get ready each morning and to remind myself exactly what I want from this life. Which is mostly just happiness.