Today’s adventures are with my phone and a statistical breakdown of facemask users in my neighborhood. Yesterday my new phone was delivered. The first anxiety was uncertainty about getting the SIM card out of my old phone. I always have trouble doing that. I tried with various pointing objects and always failed. Someone at Boost told me to use a sewing needle. It didn’t work. I googled and found a video showing how to remove it using what the narrator called a paperclip. I have tried paperclips. That wasn’t what she used. It was a safety pin. English was not her first language. A safety pin worked. There most of been something gumming the works on my old phone as opening the slot on the new phone was much easier. I put the SIM card in and fired up the phone. I was able to get on Wi-Fi but got a message saying there was a problem with the SIM card. NOOOOOOO! I didn’t panic. I just had slow simmering anxiety. I decided to take it to the neighborhood Boost Mobile store. He got it working. It just involved getting things set up with Boost. Whew. I now have a working phone. What I don’t have is my phone case. I thought I left it at home but it’s not here. I must have brought it to the store and left it on the counter. I’ll call tomorrow and see if they have it and pick it up if they do. My old phone took a lot of abuse until I got that case. My therapist loved it. It was faux leather. Or maybe it was real leather.
What I love about android phones is that I could get connected to my Google account and get full access to everything. I connected with my contacts and called Alison. The phone was my birthday present from her. I’m now busily customizing it. First I have to download all the apps I like. Then I have to get the sounds right. I wonder if my custom ringtones were saves somewhere on OneDrive, if not I have to make new ones. For musician friends I use them singing. I think River was the only non-musician to get a custom ringtone, Gentle Arms of Eden.
On the way to the Boost store I did a survey of people with and without masks. On previous trips I just counted the numbers. This time I broke it down by gender as I had two friends that said the numbers were skewed. One said it was only white males not wearing masks. I knew I wouldn’t find that as I was likely to be the only white male I encountered. Here is what I found.
- Men
- Masked – 14
- Unmasked – 12
- Women
- Masked -13
- Unmasked -11
That’s as balanced as you can get. I was glad the majority wore masks, but I wish it were a higher percentage. If the mask were worn so I could see the person’s nostrils I counted it as no mask. I’m going to try and continue to count whenever I’m out. The person in the store was fully masked as was I. I counted because you can’t trust your gut judgment. People are terrible at intuitive statistics. It helps contribute to systematic prejudice. People want those people to be worse and then seek confirmation bias. I told a friend about a typical encounter with a rude person on the subway. The friend asked, “Was he black?” I responded, “What difference does it make?” I try to be careful when talking about unpleasant people to omit any references to the persons background, age, or sex. Sometimes it’s difficult. I use “they” with friends that prefer it, but I don’t like the usage. My friends’ feelings are far my important than my linguistic preferences. In this case notice I gave no hint to my friends’ sex, I did say “he” for the rude person on the subway because I was quoting.
I have some food news, I made Shai-hulud aka Hasselback potatoes for the first time in what might be years. I used to make them often. They are the best. I figured the air fryer would be great. It was but I undercooked it a bit. Even then the skin was crisper than usual. Here’s my recipe for them, How to Make Hasselback Potatoes. I cut the cooking time down to 50 minutes. Next time I’ll give it an hour. Things cook faster in an air fryer. It’s almost 9 and I’m starving. I better make dinner.
Wise Madness 