Continuing puzzlement from seniors about apps compels me to enlighten you with information gathered from friends and Web sites all promising to use easy words. First, app means application. Well, that was easy. Further investigation revealed, “It is software used on a mobile device like an iPad, smartphone (those flat ones) or tablet.” Easy again, but note not an iPod, which I gather is something which only plays records.
Danger approaches with: “You get apps through the Web online via your browser; not to be confused with cloud-based software e.g. Google docs.” Are we all together now? To continue, “A new app which runs on only one platform increases the desirability of that platform and in this case is called a ‘killer app.’” For example, “Ted’s killer app can run circles around your old WordSun program.” Make a note.
Apps are often used for playing games. The recent hit Angry Birds kills hours of valuable time as people try to make them happy. Ask anyone. Hundreds of apps with of all kinds of information are “available from the Apple store for phones and Google play store for Androids.” Oh, I don’t know! Just remember that.
Each app has a cute little picture called an icon on your screen. You push it and it opens up and does what you want … in theory. I pushed and pushed and it didn’t do squat!
I’m confused, but still fascinated, especially about what I’ve been told is the latest model. Several friends have said they can’t wait to go with me to Fry’s. People are so kind. They seem to want to be with me when I inquire about a maxi-pad.
Sadie Hawkins Day
Here it is November and I remember my schooldays in Maine where that was the time schools often had a Sadie Hawkins dance. The decorations and costumes were based on a popular comic strip about hillbillies featuring Li’l Abner and his friends in Dogpatch.
Seniors all know the town’s oldest spinster was Sadie Hawkins. Tired of waiting around for the question to be popped, Sadie’s daddy (the sheriff) decreed there be a race where the girls chased the boys and any bachelor they caught had to marry them. Sadie thought this a great idea and yearly she tried her best to catch Li’l Abner.
Although we Maine-iacs knew nothing about such people, the concept became a popular dance theme and people dressed as their favorite characters from the strip. It was not thought politic to require marriage, so they settled on having the girls ask the boys to the dance; a shocking idea at the time.
Today that is not a big deal, but other things are. Consider: are hillbilly costumes politically correct; can we even say hillbilly (Hillbilly?); could their dialect be imitated in speech or on posters for the dance; would Granny’s corn-cob pipe be banned as Popeye’s is? And what about the complications here in Hillcrest where the traditional gender roles can get a little fuzzy: who asks whom or if we have a race, who chases whom, and what do you do when you catch them? At the dance I mean!
