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By Mom Unplugged, June 20, 2008 9:51 am

You probably already knew that you could opt out of catalogs, but did you know that you can also opt out of receiving phone books?

Thanks so much to Hettie of Celtic Mommy for emailing me this link:

YellowPagesGoesGreen.org

I am an active CatalogChoice participant, but the phone book thing is going to be harder for me to adopt. I am old-fashioned I guess, and for some reason I like having my local phone numbers all there in a book in my desk drawer.

However I do live in a small area and my single phonebook (white and yellow pages combined) is only about an inch thick! If I was in New York City, or LA where my phone books weighed more than my oldest child, I would be ever so eager to rid myself of them forever!

But do we really need to have numerous phone books dumped at our door several times per year? I would prefer to call and ask for a book every year or two…or better yet, get used to finding my information paperlessly, online.

Of course phone books are a great source of advertising revenue for phone companies and other private companies that compile directories, so they won’t easily cease distribution. That is why if this cause is important to you, then help spread the word that such an option is available.

Here are some facts (according to YellowPagesGoesGreen):

To produce 500 million books:

• 19 million trees need to be harvested
• 1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
• 7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
• 268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
• 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered

Be sure to check out the YellowPagesGoesGreen links page too.

I am off to sign up now to opt out of my little phone book and begin changing my habits to a paper-free phone life!

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By Mom Unplugged, May 11, 2008 5:18 pm

I don’t usually get too excited about giveaways, but dkMommy Spot is hosting one that I would actually really enjoy winning! So would most of you I think, especially if you like hanging around my Unplugged Toystores page while dreaming of a little online shopping.

If you stop by her site you can comment for a chance at winning a $35 gift certificate from Wild Dill, a wonderful store featuring organic, fair-trade and natural children’s clothing, toys, bedding, and various other accessories. I liked the look of Wild Dill so much that I felt moved to add it to both my Unplugged Toystores page and my Unplugged Eco Shopping page.

You can also subscribe to the dkMommyspot blog and/or write your own post about the giveaway for additional chances to win.

I probably won’t win since I rarely win anything, but hopefully one of you will. Good luck and I hope you enjoy checking out Wild Dill!

Oh…and the giveaway ends on Tuesday, May 13th so hurry up and enter right now if you are interested.

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By Mom Unplugged, February 23, 2008 9:20 am

We all know that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) movie ratings system is ridiculous. The MPAA is hardly a neutral party, in fact it describes itself as “the voice and advocate of the American motion picture, home video and television industries.” Even disregarding the fact that that MPAA is financed and controlled by the motion picture industry itself, in my mind any kind of general label to be applied to a movie could never be an accurate indicator of what is appropriate or inappropriate for all children.

The MPAA bases its ratings on age. All parents know that just because someone else’s 13 year-old can handle and enjoy a more “mature” movie, doesn’t mean that your more sensitive 13 year-old is ready for such a movie yet. Additionally, parents differ in what they want their children exposed to. Some parents are more liberal and less bothered by bad language for example, whereas others take a more protective approach.

So how can parents make informed decisions about what movies to allow their children to see? Do parents have to pre-screen every potential film themselves? That is hardly a practical solution.

My wonderfully well-informed friend Wishy told me about a website that she uses to check out family movies before either seeing them on-screen or renting the video, and I have recently added it to the “Useful Websites” category of my blogroll (left sidebar).

Common Sense Media is a “non-partisan, not-for-profit organization” providing “trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume.” This organization has its own rating system whereby it determines its own minimum age for appropriateness, as well as providing a 5-star quide to the quality of a movie. Just because a movie is age-appropriate doesn’t mean you want to sit through 2 hours of nonsense, right?

Although Common Sense Media is more neutral in its ratings than the MPAA, as I mentioned above, simply assigning a one-size-fits-all recommended age is not always very helpful. In my mind, the best part of Common Sense Media’s reviews is the “Content Grid.” This is where you can find out the nitty gritty details about a movie’s Sexual Content, Violence, Language and Message (Social Behavior, Commercialism, and Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco use).

Do you want to know exactly what bad language occurs in a film and how often? Do you want to know how many times the hero picks up a can of Diet Coke? Do you want to know if there is gross comedy involving bodily functions or any potentially scary scenes? This is where you’ll find that information. Warning: this detailed information can be considered a “spoiler” for some, but as a parent seeking information, aren’t you really looking for a “spoiler?”

So go to the site, pick a movie, and read the review to see just what kind of information you can learn!

Another site that I discovered on my own while researching this post is Kids-In-Mind. I think I actually prefer this site (despite the annoying banner ads) because it doesn’t attempt to assign any minimum age or even review the quality of a movie. Instead it simply provides VERY detailed descriptions of film content. Here is an excerpt from their “About” page:

The purpose of kids-in-mind.com is to provide parents and other adults with objective and complete information about a film’s content so that they can decide, based on their own value system, whether they should watch a movie with or without their kids.

It’s like a food labeling system which tells you what a food item contains. That’s it. We make no judgments about what is good or bad or anything else. Indeed, we do not “condemn,” “critique” or “criticize” movies. And we don’t “praise” or “recommend” movies either. We advance no “beliefs” and we do not “preach” anything. We are not affiliated with any political party, any cultural or religious group, or any ideology. The only thing we advocate is responsible, engaged parenting.

They point out that often their descriptions are so detailed as to be a bit ridiculous, but as they say: “…we’d rather err on the side of comprehensiveness. It’s up to parents to decide which details are useful to them and their family, and which ones they consider fatuous.”

I like this philosophy. Non-judgmental, simply a great source for detailed information so that parents can make their own movie viewing decisions based on their personal concerns and values, and knowing the sensitivity-level of their child. Sounds good to me!

Photo courtesy of morguefile.com and photographer Michael Connors.

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By Mom Unplugged, January 5, 2008 10:44 pm

My last post, Leisurely or Lickety-Split?, posed a very subjective question: is my blog slow to load? I received a very interesting array of responses ranging from: Your site has been very slow to load and actually several times has made internet explorer shut down…” (sorry!), to “no, not at all.” However I must say that the one commonality was that you were all very kind in your comments, even when I might be the cause of crashing browsers. Thank you!

Well I do realize that much affects internet speed and crashing browsers and probably every person that commented today, DID have a different experience of my load time. Some are using dial-up, Blogger could be goofy, perhaps my blog works better in some browsers than others…who knows.

But all this got me thinking about what “slow” really means. Anyone who has travelled abroad, especially to countries with cultures very different from one’s own, has to realize that what is considered “slow” is extremely culturally dependent.

I remember reading somewhere a long, long time ago when the Former Soviet Union was still THE Soviet Union, that people in Russia would happily wait in line for an extremely long period of time. In fact if there was a line outside a store, people joined it automatically without knowing what it was for, because if there was that long a line, there must be something good inside.

Well I don’t know how true that last “fact” is, but I imagine that the Soviets, like everyone else in the world, had a certain expectation of how long their wait in line should be, and it was almost certainly much longer than the wait tolerated by a person in the US.

I think I read somewhere that the average time that an American will happily wait in line is 7 minutes, but I couldn’t find that statistic anywhere online, so don’t quote me on it OK? And of course if it is the eve of “Black Friday” at Walmart, we all know that some Americans will camp out all night in the cold just to hold a place in line.

Also, not surprisingly, people will happily wait longer when distracted either by a menu at a restaurant, or a video at Disney…but that annoying “elevator music” that plays when you are on hold on the phone? That irritates more than it distracts, since it is totally unrelated to the service that we expect to receive (as opposed to a menu). I could have told you that!

I did find out in my brief research however, that there is a whole science out there called “Queuing Theory” which is “the mathematical study of waiting in lines.”

I don’t know why, but I find this fascinating! Maybe it is because I listened to so many grumbling Americans as I stood in my interminable airport security line in Mexico.

I had hoped to find some stats online about average tolerable wait times based on country/culture, but unfortunately I was unable to. I’ll keep looking though, since I am sure a study is out there somewhere. (Does anyone know of one?)

My personal theory is that Americans are probably among the most impatient people in the world. We want what we want, and we want it now. I also think that if somebody had mapped the amount of time that people would willingly wait for a service over many many years, we would see our willingness to wait decreasing over time.

Perhaps that is where all this rambling ties in with Unplug Your Kids. I think that with the excess of high speed, high stim stuff that we have today, we don’t know how to wait anymore. There are TV’s in restaurants for goodness sakes! Oh well, that is a post for another day. Time to get back on track:

I did find a study that claims that the “tolerable waiting time” for a webpage to load before people give up and go elsewhere is 2 seconds! (A Study on Tolerable Waiting Time: How Long are Web Users Willing to Wait? by Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah (2004), Behavior & Information Technology, forthcoming)

A tool that I have been using to check download speed indicates that Unplug Your Kids loads in 0.96 seconds, but I have never understood this site. My result sounds reassuring, but how can it be so definitive when there are so many variables?

In the comments to Leisurely or Lickety-Split?, Christine suggested I try Web Page Analyzer. This one breaks down the results by connection speed, much more helpful. UPYK ranged from 141.44 seconds at 56K to 12.33 seconds with a T1 connection. What!! Why are any of you even here? Perhaps I should be flattered that you are willing to wait so long to read my precious pearls of wisdom. LOL! Seriously though, I need an overhaul.

For anyone else who wants to analyze the speed of their blog, geeky me liked Web Page Analyzer (free by the way) because it gives lots of information about download time per object type, and even an analysis and recommendations for improvement at the bottom of the page. Really helpful! Thanks Christine!

I hope I haven’t bored everyone to death with my nerdy musings about wait times and geeky website speed test sites. It is ironic that I, self-proclaimed “Mom Unplugged” who strives for a less technology-laden life, am obsessing about how to shave a second or two of my blog’s load time. The fact that I even have a blog at all is an irony that has not escaped me! But rest assured that this is merely a passing obsession for me. UPYK will not be turning into a tech blog anytime soon.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia, a queue for goods in the People’s Republic of Poland.

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By Mom Unplugged, November 27, 2007 12:19 am

It is 10:00 PM and I have just single-handedly put four children to bed not long ago (one extra is here tonight). I have a few blog post ideas circulating in my head, but no energy to do a good job on them. So instead…I give you some useful Holiday-related links:

Here are some good ones left in my comments from my blog friend Andree-Meeyauw (I think she was surfing on my behalf as a form of procrastination, but I am grateful! Thank you Andree!):

++Thanksgiving Comes First post from Bostonscapes Daily Photo: “If you’d like ‘the holiday season’ to regain the meaning it once had, then let ‘them’ know how you feel. The Internet is a very powerful tool, take advantage of it.” Use your blog to help speak out against commercial Christmas greed.

++New American Dream: A really interesting site that I have to explore further. Has a good section on Simplifying the Holidays with a very worthwhile downloadable brochure.

++BetterLiving.co.nz, a New Zealand site, has some quick tips for Simplifying Christmas, instructions for making a Snowman Advent Calendar, and lots of other Christmas articles that I have not yet explored.

++The Simple Living Network, a website devoted to promoting voluntary simplicity, has a section of books to buy about simplifying holidays and celebrations (mostly Christmas, including Unplug The Christmas Machine but also weddings, and one interesting-sounding book on many holidays).

My amazing, super-organized blog friend Heather of Celtic Mommy, the guest author of Help! I Love Doing it All, But How Can I Find Time to Do it? , offered lots of great links, but these are good general simplifying links:

++Cruising Through the Holidays from FlyLady: Tons of advice from organizing to “clutter-free” gifts, to preparing and packing for travel…I have not had a chance to look at it all, but it looks good!

++Organized Christmas: For you organized people out there who think you aren’t organized enough. Printable lists, a six-week organizing plan, an eighteen-week holiday “Grand Plan”…you get the idea. Stress for us Type 1 Slackers, bliss for the Type 2 Organizers. The site also has some printable gifts, gift tags, and crafts that are quite interesting. Easy homemade gift idea: Journal prompts (for adults or children) in a jar anyone?

Finally, some sites that I can recommend:

++The Toymaker: GORGEOUS printable toys, cards, and gifts that kids could print out and assemble as holiday gifts.

++My Unplugged Toy Store list: I know there are others out there and I keep adding as I find them. These stores offer simple, high-quality toys that never require batteries. The only additional item needed is your child’s imagination. Many of them also specify where a toy was made if you are avoiding Chinese-made toys this year.

++My Unplugged Book Store list: No junky, commercially tied-in books in these stores. (Again, I am always adding new links as I come across them…but they must meet my standards in order to make the list!)

I am sure that I could come up with more, but I am tired so I wish you all good night!

Read all the Christmas/Holidays Unplugged posts here.