Dumb/silly/slapstick thing Permanent link to this item in the archive.

My cell rang. I picked up and pressed to my ear a silver-colored stick deodorant of my son's. It must be new, not yet put away in the bathroom, lying on kitchen counter.

"Hello? Sure, no sweat."

Speculations on the marriage of eBay and Skype Permanent link to this item in the archive.

David Gibbons throws out three reasons why eBay bought Skype. I can definitely see David's first scenario, basically pay-per-call tech support. We can only hope it doesn't also mean a rebirth of the 900 number industry. It's easy to see ripples from this idea: psychic readings, homework help, dial-a-reference-librarian, Lucy's psychiatric help for 5 cents. What other services can you imagine?

(Still a crap load of money, though, innit?)

Later: I cross-posted this on my "real" blog this morning, and David added to the list in a comment:

 interesting use cases - exactly - more:

 411

 commercial 911 ("you never renewed your platinum membership sir")

 personal shopper

 virtual assistant

 home-school tutor

 kitchen buddy - cooking tutor

 career coaches (gonna b big)

 marriage counselling

 shrinks - affordable global -

 @ home personal trainer

 nutrinionalist

New passage up Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Play the latest round of my literature game podcast.

Play the latest passage in the Who Said literature game

Tried Hot Recorder with Google Talk Permanent link to this item in the archive.

I downloaded the free version of Hot Recorder this morning. You can now record Google Talk chats, which could be a nice thing for podcasters. It also works as a voice mail recorder for Google Talk, but the quality doesn't seem to be as nice.

Hot Recorder added Skype recording capability a few weeks ago.

This might make me pop for the $14.95 full version. The free version only records for two minutes from Skype or Google Talk. Plus, you can't convert from the native .elp file format to .ogg or .wav without the audio converter tool, which is still in beta, but only available as part of the premium version.

Fortunately it's not a budget-breaking decision to make. Online goodies that cost 10 or 15 dollars feel like picking up an impulse item in the checkout line, kind of a "what the hell" purchase.