It's time for a mobile phone technology update. Of course, it's always time for an update, because thanks to the clever people who make them ("How can we make another million dollars? Hey, let's put out a new model") one hits the streets about every three minutes, giving you just enough time to pay for it before it's obsolete. This is bad news if you insist on having the very latest model. Just as you're leaving the shop with your state-of-the-art T20, you'll spot the brand new T20a (the "a" meaning, "absolutely no difference whatsoever") on the shelf, and you'll be heading back to rub some more numbers off your credit card, which now looks more like an Instant Scratchie. Getting a new phone every few minutes might feel like heaven (especially to your bank manager), but it keeps you from doing important things like eating, drinking and yelling into your mobile phone. Even if you could last a whole week without updating your phone, you'd have about a million accessories (each sold separately) to choose from. I know what you're going through. I work in the computer industry, and there's always a faster graphics card, better sound card, or new program we just have to have if we don't want other computer geeks kicking silicon in our faces. But once we've bought it we have to go home again to load it up or screw it in (or, in my case, load it in and screw it up), which gives us just enough time to eat something from each of the basic vending machine food groups -- chips, coke and chocolate. You, on the other hand, probably have your phone with you all the time, and because the accessories are so easy to fit even a yuppie can do it, there's really no need to leave the shop. You can just hang around all day, playing with your new toys until the next batch of phones arrives. But you not only risk wasting away (or at least losing that stomach you've spent countless business lunches working on), but also having to explain it to your wife/your girlfriend/the guys in Finance. So to help you out, I'll tell you what's available so you can have someone else buy them for you while you grab a bite to eat. Always wanted a PlayStation but only ever had a Game Boy? Well, you can now use your mobile phone to play games that will make your Game Boy feel like a PlayStation in comparison. Now you have some real hard decisions to make: should you answer that important phone call, or go for the top score in Tetris? You can also, through a couple of relatively inexpensive add-ons ("relatively" meaning you'll have to sell one of your children), turn your phone into a radio or even an MP3 player. You can now sing along to your favourite music on your phone, completely oblivious to everyone else who can only hear you singing so far off key they think you're on another planet. Just make sure you get a battery that has a long enough talk/standby/karaoke time. The one thing you can't do is have MP3s or the radio as your ring tune (yet). But don't worry - jump on the Internet, download the ring tune to your mobile phone, and you can have it played back to you one note at a time whenever someone rings you. You used to have to go all the way to your local shopping mall to hear your favourite song being murdered. Now it's literally just a phone call away. And finally, you can now get a cordless headset that works up to ten metres away from your phone. This is great for people who are ten metres tall and have never found an earpiece with a long enough cord. It's also great for people thinking of stealing a mobile phone, because they'll have a ten-metre head start on whoever owns it. Well, it's been a few minutes since you started reading this column, which means there's a whole new range of phones and accessories out there. It's time for a mobile phone technology update. Of course, it's always time for an update, because thanks to the clever people who make them.... AUTHOR BIO: Bill Harper lives in Queensland, Australia, where he works with computers. He is also a talented writer who has been published in various magazines and newspapers and on the Web. Brave man that he is, Bill admits to having performed stand-up comedy, though it's not something he wants to go through again. He is a member of NetWits, the world's largest group of Internet humourists (yes, that's an acceptable spelling no matter what your American spellchecker says). You can find Bill's weekly humour column "Bill-Bored" and lots more at HumourWriter.com.

I stumble across all kinds of weirdness on the Internet--who doesn't? You think you're starting out at a legitimate site and then, with a click-click here and a cluck-cluck there, pretty soon you're inside a porn palace before your kids can complain: Mom, you said you'd sign off in ten minutes and it's been AN HOUR!!! Last week I ended up at a site belonging to Carol Muskoron, a thirty-seven-year-old woman from North London who is writing a novel. What makes Carol stand out from all the other would-be novelists in North London is that she's writing online and in the nude. Every day, you can read excerpts from the novel-in-progress, along with some of her other completed works. And there's a short video clip showing her seated in her garret, naked and poised at the keyboard. She keeps it interesting by flirting with the camera, fluffing her hair, stretching, typing for a few seconds, and then fluffing once again. Sometimes she knits. Or eats a sweet. Drinks coffee. Jots down notes in her journal. Gazes out the window. Puts her feet up on the desk, strategically placing the keyboard on her lap. I've not seen Carol applying any tattoos or practicing yoga, but I'm only a recent fan and so far she hasn't archived her past performances on the site. From what I can tell, she makes an effort to truly engage her audience by acting as animated as possible while naked in a confined space, pretending to be alone in a crowd and praying for a book deal. Sure it's a gimmick. She has gotten more press coverage (un-coverage?) than the average writer at home, working on a first novel. And why not? People love to learn about the creative process, and they love to watch. Given a choice, which scene from a Webcam would you prefer--a cute but vapid college girl in her dorm room, fighting off horny frat boys, or an intelligent and sexy woman in a loft, facing off with her writing muse? Her site is educational, at the very least. Titillating, at the very most. There are days when the inspiration to write escapes me--when I lack the time, nerve, and edge it takes to get something funny off my chest that's not a crumb from the breakfast I scarfed down during the drive to my office. And yet there's Carol, rain or shine. Good hair days or bad. Plugging away. Entertaining. Writing. Making progress on what appears to be a compelling piece of fiction. Wait-a-minute! Get something off my chest? Hmmmm...is the world ready for Naked Humorists.com? I could shed my clothes and have dozens--or perhaps thousands--of disgusted voyeurs "flaming" me with messages to Put It On, Put It ALL Back On. Just the sight of me in this state, typing my short humor essays, would be a laughing matter--for all the wrong reasons. Even if I mastered the art of fluffing my thinning, middle-aged tangle of hair, I doubt such exposure would lead to the kind of publishing contract that I sometimes think I deserve. However in this business, where sex sells and P.R. is the name of the game, I'm barely in a position to rule anything out. And that's the naked truth. * * * * * * F L A S H * * * * * * I am currently soliciting short essays (approx. 450 to 700 words, on any topic that's appropriate for my kids to read) by humorists willing to provide a jpeg or gif of their face ONLY. Adobe PhotoShop and I will give you a choice of bodies. All in good taste, of course. Think PG-14.5. A link back to your site is all the payment I can offer at this time, but imagine how cool it could be to "have" the body of your dreams. Write me at nakedhumorists@yahoo.com and put NH Submission in the subject line. Take the challenge! What's to lose but your virtual clothes? AUTHOR BIO: Marilyn D. Davis is the Webmistress of TechnoCursed.com.  There's a whole page about her, if you're interested.  Or you can just check out her Web sites: All She Writes and Naked Humorists.

Surf through this site and have a laugh, before your computer crashes.

ARTICLES

Writing, Barely by Marilyn D. Davis Naked writers online? Yes, they're real. Yes, you can see them for free. Yes, Marilyn D. Davis wants more; find out why. (With copious thanks to Naked Novelist Carol Muskoron.)

Phoney Technology by Bill Harper Bill Harper takes a comprehensive and humourous(sic) look at the joys and sorrows of living in a world where it's become fashionable to change our cell phones as often as our underwear.

I stumble across all kinds of weirdness on the Internet--who doesn't? You think you're starting out at a legitimate site and then, with a click-click here and a cluck-cluck there, pretty soon you're inside a porn palace before your kids can complain: Mom, you said you'd sign off in ten minutes and it's been AN HOUR!!! Last week I ended up at a site belonging to Carol Muskoron, a thirty-seven-year-old woman from North London who is writing a novel. What makes Carol stand out from all the other would-be novelists in North London is that she's writing online and in the nude. Every day, you can read excerpts from the novel-in-progress, along with some of her other completed works. And there's a short video clip showing her seated in her garret, naked and poised at the keyboard. She keeps it interesting by flirting with the camera, fluffing her hair, stretching, typing for a few seconds, and then fluffing once again. Sometimes she knits. Or eats a sweet. Drinks coffee. Jots down notes in her journal. Gazes out the window. Puts her feet up on the desk, strategically placing the keyboard on her lap. I've not seen Carol applying any tattoos or practicing yoga, but I'm only a recent fan and so far she hasn't archived her past performances on the site. From what I can tell, she makes an effort to truly engage her audience by acting as animated as possible while naked in a confined space, pretending to be alone in a crowd and praying for a book deal. Sure it's a gimmick. She has gotten more press coverage (un-coverage?) than the average writer at home, working on a first novel. And why not? People love to learn about the creative process, and they love to watch. Given a choice, which scene from a Webcam would you prefer--a cute but vapid college girl in her dorm room, fighting off horny frat boys, or an intelligent and sexy woman in a loft, facing off with her writing muse? Her site is educational, at the very least. Titillating, at the very most. There are days when the inspiration to write escapes me--when I lack the time, nerve, and edge it takes to get something funny off my chest that's not a crumb from the breakfast I scarfed down during the drive to my office. And yet there's Carol, rain or shine. Good hair days or bad. Plugging away. Entertaining. Writing. Making progress on what appears to be a compelling piece of fiction. Wait-a-minute! Get something off my chest? Hmmmm...is the world ready for Naked Humorists.com? I could shed my clothes and have dozens--or perhaps thousands--of disgusted voyeurs "flaming" me with messages to Put It On, Put It ALL Back On. Just the sight of me in this state, typing my short humor essays, would be a laughing matter--for all the wrong reasons. Even if I mastered the art of fluffing my thinning, middle-aged tangle of hair, I doubt such exposure would lead to the kind of publishing contract that I sometimes think I deserve. However in this business, where sex sells and P.R. is the name of the game, I'm barely in a position to rule anything out. And that's the naked truth. * * * * * * F L A S H * * * * * * I am currently soliciting short essays (approx. 450 to 700 words, on any topic that's appropriate for my kids to read) by humorists willing to provide a jpeg or gif of their face ONLY. Adobe PhotoShop and I will give you a choice of bodies. All in good taste, of course. Think PG-14.5. A link back to your site is all the payment I can offer at this time, but imagine how cool it could be to "have" the body of your dreams. Write me at nakedhumorists@yahoo.com and put NH Submission in the subject line. Take the challenge! What's to lose but your virtual clothes? AUTHOR BIO: Marilyn D. Davis is the Webmistress of TechnoCursed.com.  There's a whole page about her, if you're interested.  Or you can just check out her Web sites: All She Writes and Naked Humorists.

It's time for a mobile phone technology update. Of course, it's always time for an update, because thanks to the clever people who make them ("How can we make another million dollars? Hey, let's put out a new model") one hits the streets about every three minutes, giving you just enough time to pay for it before it's obsolete. This is bad news if you insist on having the very latest model. Just as you're leaving the shop with your state-of-the-art T20, you'll spot the brand new T20a (the "a" meaning, "absolutely no difference whatsoever") on the shelf, and you'll be heading back to rub some more numbers off your credit card, which now looks more like an Instant Scratchie. Getting a new phone every few minutes might feel like heaven (especially to your bank manager), but it keeps you from doing important things like eating, drinking and yelling into your mobile phone. Even if you could last a whole week without updating your phone, you'd have about a million accessories (each sold separately) to choose from. I know what you're going through. I work in the computer industry, and there's always a faster graphics card, better sound card, or new program we just have to have if we don't want other computer geeks kicking silicon in our faces. But once we've bought it we have to go home again to load it up or screw it in (or, in my case, load it in and screw it up), which gives us just enough time to eat something from each of the basic vending machine food groups -- chips, coke and chocolate. You, on the other hand, probably have your phone with you all the time, and because the accessories are so easy to fit even a yuppie can do it, there's really no need to leave the shop. You can just hang around all day, playing with your new toys until the next batch of phones arrives. But you not only risk wasting away (or at least losing that stomach you've spent countless business lunches working on), but also having to explain it to your wife/your girlfriend/the guys in Finance. So to help you out, I'll tell you what's available so you can have someone else buy them for you while you grab a bite to eat. Always wanted a PlayStation but only ever had a Game Boy? Well, you can now use your mobile phone to play games that will make your Game Boy feel like a PlayStation in comparison. Now you have some real hard decisions to make: should you answer that important phone call, or go for the top score in Tetris? You can also, through a couple of relatively inexpensive add-ons ("relatively" meaning you'll have to sell one of your children), turn your phone into a radio or even an MP3 player. You can now sing along to your favourite music on your phone, completely oblivious to everyone else who can only hear you singing so far off key they think you're on another planet. Just make sure you get a battery that has a long enough talk/standby/karaoke time. The one thing you can't do is have MP3s or the radio as your ring tune (yet). But don't worry - jump on the Internet, download the ring tune to your mobile phone, and you can have it played back to you one note at a time whenever someone rings you. You used to have to go all the way to your local shopping mall to hear your favourite song being murdered. Now it's literally just a phone call away. And finally, you can now get a cordless headset that works up to ten metres away from your phone. This is great for people who are ten metres tall and have never found an earpiece with a long enough cord. It's also great for people thinking of stealing a mobile phone, because they'll have a ten-metre head start on whoever owns it. Well, it's been a few minutes since you started reading this column, which means there's a whole new range of phones and accessories out there. It's time for a mobile phone technology update. Of course, it's always time for an update, because thanks to the clever people who make them.... AUTHOR BIO: Bill Harper lives in Queensland, Australia, where he works with computers. He is also a talented writer who has been published in various magazines and newspapers and on the Web. Brave man that he is, Bill admits to having performed stand-up comedy, though it's not something he wants to go through again. He is a member of NetWits, the world's largest group of Internet humourists (yes, that's an acceptable spelling no matter what your American spellchecker says). You can find Bill's weekly humour column "Bill-Bored" and lots more at HumourWriter.com.

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