Crash Toni

I fell off the treadmill yesterday at the gym and poked myself in the eye with my own finger when I got too excited watching Jeopardy...I think it's safe to say I'm a klutz.

A Gift To Non-Confrontational People

I cannot believe this! It's a dream come true. I can't count how many times I've wished I could just go to someone's voicemail. Still, I can't help but wonder if this is just one more convenience that will discourage positive social interaction.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The old song had it right: Breaking up is hard to do. But a free new phone service called Slydial might make it easier to get through that and other awkward moments -- without actually having to talk to anyone.
A new service lets you leave a cell-phone voice message without -- horrors! -- actually talking to someone.

Slydial lets you connect directly with another person's cell phone voice mail, bypassing the traditional ringing process that often results -- sometimes disastrously -- with someone picking up on the other end.

Users call (267) SLY-DIAL from either a cell phone or a landline, and are prompted to enter another person's cell phone number.

After playing a short advertisement -- unless users pay a subscription fee or 15 cents per call to skip ads -- Slydial puts callers directly into their target's voice mail.

Recipients should then get a voice mail notification, and sometimes they will see a caller's number show up as a missed call, too.

Gavin Macomber, co-founder of MobileSphere Ltd., the Boston-based communications company behind Slydial, thinks it can be useful not only in the dating scene, but also in the hectic business world.

"Everybody has gone through the scenario where they've called somebody and just hoped they got voice mail so they didn't have to have a conversation," he said.

Indeed, Nora Rubinoff, 45, who runs an administrative support company, At Your Service Cincinnati Ltd., has found Slydial helpful both for business and personal situations. She has left reminder messages for people one of her clients intends to interview.

And when her husband travels to a different time zone for work, she can leave him a Slydial message without disturbing him at an odd time of day, she said.

"It's been really handy," she said.

Macomber said the idea for Slydial came up while MobileSphere developed the voice mail routing component of a service meant to lower the cost of international roaming on cell phones.

The company rolled out a private test phase of Slydial in March, and has added about 5,000 users since then. The service opened to the general public in a "beta" testing phase on Monday.

The ability to call straight into someone's voice mail is not new. Most major cell phone carriers offer subscribers the option of sending voice messages to other people, but usually only to customers of the same wireless company. What's different here is that Slydial makes it possible to do it with any major wireless carrier's customer.

There are constraints to this service. It can only be used in the U.S. right now, and generally won't work with prepaid cell phones. Also, sly dialers must have the caller ID feature activated on their phones, which Macomber said is meant, in part, to prevent people from using it to harass people undetected.

It's also not always super sly. Several test calls between cell phones made the recipient's phone emit an abbreviated ring before leading to voice mail. That might make people think the person on the other end really wanted to speak -- and could result in a quick call back. Horror of horrors: A real conversation might ensue after all.

So basically after all my season finales run, I usually enter a very long mourning period because me and my tv cannot have the intimate relationship we keep up throughout the year. But on a whim a few days ago Jenn and I grabbed an extra dvd at Hollywood Video (side note: We were actually there to rent Knocked Up because we realized we were the last people on Earth who hasn't seen it and I wanted to be able to chime in with references or at least understand what everyone was talking about.) and I haven't been the same since.

Since that day I have been OBSESSED with Big Love. I love it. In a totally this is heart-warming, terrifying, so-not-right but isn't it sooo interesting kind of way. Polygamy is intriguing. And the more I watch and live my life the more I realize I might have to become a polygamist just so someone can take care of all the crap I don't want to do. So here's my list of things I'd want a second or third wife for. Applications can be submitted.

1. Doing the laundry. I hate laundry. I hate sorting. I hate folding. I hate putting it away. I hate laundry.
2. Waking up early to take care of my children's needs. I actually pray that my kids will hate mornings as much as I do. Otherwise they'll go hungry until 11 when I roll out of bed in my normal cranky, I need coffee and an hour of no human contact before I am functioning.
3. Making my coffee. So I can have it as soon as I get out of bed. This is actually not selfish at all and for the betterment of society. The quicker caffeine is in my system that quicker I stop cursing the world.
4. Cooking. So my husband and kids won't have to live off of Hamburger Helper and Mac and Cheese.
5. Doing anything that in my 23 years I should already know how to do but just can't seem too figure out. Like making tuna melts or finding the lug nuts on my truck.

I know Jenn pretty much does all this for me now. But in the case that I cannot convince her to be a polygamist I need my options. It might be easier to just make sure I make enough money to hire a maid though. Or enough to pay Jenn for her services :)

Only In My Hometown

Does this happen:

1. I hear "Hot Damn is that Miss Del Norte walking through our door" (For the record it has now been 6 years).
2. I get a free lunch at Denny's cause the guy knows me and my grandma. While there I run into four other people I knew. Ok I knew the whole restaurant but only talked to four others.
3. At Glen's (the only other diner in town) they ask me if I want to put my lunch on my old boss' tab. Hell Yeah!
4. The high school quarterback is listed as one of the ten most influential people in Del Norte County on the back of a menu.
5. I run into people who I don't know who ask how Boston was, when my next story will be out and how my new bedliner is.

Nigel, you know Nigel Barker, my husband? Ya he's now saving seals. How freaking adorable is that? Yup the ORIGINAL hottie photographer (now will be referred to as OHP) is in Canada documenting the birth and then the slaughter of the seals. I never really cared about them before. The seals that is. But if they are allowing Nigel to be out and about and me to see hot pics of him than I say we save the little squirts.

On the topic of hot guys doing cool things...the hot stripper guy from American Idol just busted out "It's All Coming Back To Me" So the vocals weren't as great as Celine's (I mean come on..it's Celine) but how amazing is it that a hot guy-who I swear is not into guys- totally rocked her ballad? AHHHH...I just realized Celine is Canadian. UGH! But she's from where they speak French. That doesn't count. Ok. I'm better now.

I'm A Big Girl Now!

Well it is has finally come to that time where I enter a blog about life after Boston. Because life after Boston has been in full swing now for about a month. To summarize my adventures since leaving the town of snow, ice and the Red Sox, I have provided you with bulleted points:

*Leaving Boston took about four days. After a car accident two hours before our flight, several weather delays and some lost luggage, California never looked so good.
*The holidays were great. My family and I spent time together with virtually no bloodshed. A major triumph.
*Chico life has been fantastic. My humble abode with my BFF is a dream come true. We have coffee in the mornings together, cook dinner together and currently share a bed. I honestly believe that if I wasn't so boy crazy I would be a lesbian and marry her.
*Work has kept me busy. Sure I'm making next to nothing, but making my own hours, writing stories in my slippers and making phone calls while watching The People's Court has its perks.
*I took Jenn home. The second we hit the road coming into Crescent City, she got a real taste of my life. There were cows. In the road. Yup, they broke out and were just hanging out in front of the car. This is where I come from.
*Yesterday I spent a significant amount of time hanging out with the most adorable three-year-old. He loves yellow, fire hydrants and tells me he loves me. If he were twenty years older there would be significant potential. But only if we could control those slobbery kisses.

Snowy Nights

In another moment of brilliance I decided since it was snowing outside I would turn off the lights and let the candles in my fireplace blaze while cooking dinner. The combination of the smoke from my broiled chicken and the candles set my smoke alarm off, which by the way, is wired into my electricity, so you can't take out the batteries to make it shut off. So in order to make the beeping stop I had to open my windows in the freezing temperature to stop the smoke from the fire I wanted to make because it was freezing in the first place. Ugh.

This is just another example of why West Coast girls suffer in Boston. Or maybe it's just me?