Like most iPhone users, I’m an addict. I check email, facebook and Twitter. I like texting, and when I’m at loose ends I might play a game or two on my phone. With all of these fun activities, it is so tempting to continue texting and using the phone while I am in a vehicle, even if I’m the driver. It doesn’t seem that dangerous, does it?

Well, the evidence shows that texting while driving reduces your reaction times to a 70 year old driver, or worse. Texting is responsible for a lot of traffic accidents, many of them resulting in death. Society needs to find a solution to this problem.

Safecell can help drivers make the right choices. If you start up the Safecell app when you start your trip, it tracks your position and notifies you of local laws regarding cell phone use in vehicles. When a text or call comes in, Safecell will warn you of the potential consequences of picking it up while driving.

But the best part about Safecell is that it records a users cell phone use while driving, awarding points for safe behavior. Users can eventually trade these points for all sorts of rewards, with vendors such as Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many others. 500 points are valued at $5, and the users of Safecell get a point for every safe mile driven.

With all of the great rewards available, it is an awesome way to earn an iPod, Amazon products, even travel vouchers from a cruise line. At the same time, the roads will be safer in places like Alberta, Canada. It’s a win win situation, so please, check out the Safecell Application and see if it’s right for you.

Otter lets phone users control their texting in a vehicle in more than one way. There is a really good video which shows the features of Otter, better than I can describe them (check out the Otter video here). GPS based motion sensing technology allows the user to set Otter to block incoming texts and calls, if so desired.  While the vehicle is in motion, the Otter app will silence alerts and ringtones and allow the driver to focus on the task at hand, driving. At the same time, customized reply messages can be created which allow users to inform callers and texters that they aren’t being ignored, and their message will be returned when safe.

Parents can set Otter to do these functions in their teenager’s phone, with a password. This allows parents to set ground rules for their driving aged children to keep them safe behind the wheel, eliminating temptation.

My personal opinion is that spouses should be able to passcode the phones of their husbands and wives with the Otter application to keep them safe behind the wheel, not just teenagers. Everyone seems to be in denial about how dangerous it is to be a distracted driver. Yes, teenagers are texting and driving, but so are housewives, salesmen, and truck drivers!

I would love to try out Otter myself, but unfortunately that isn’t possible on the iPhone at this time. Apple, get with the program and help us have this functionality! You don’t want Android to get the drop on you, do you? Texting and driving is a safety issue, and phone manufacturers are enabling people to make poor choices. I think all of the companies which put phones on the market should be trying to eliminate cell phone use by drivers.

According to one website, Edgar, Snyder and Associates, a law firm specializing in representing injured people,there is a lot of hard evidence that cell phone use and texting played a big part in a lot of car crashes. They claim that “in 2007, driver distractions, such as using a cell phone or text messaging, contributed to nearly 1,000 crashes involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers”. That is statistics where only those in that age group were involved, and only those that admitted to or were specifically seen using their cell phone. These statistics don’t count 30 year olds, for instance, and almost all the 30 year olds I know think it is perfectly fine to text while driving.

Another statistic from that same site claimed that in 2008, “at any given moment, over 800,000 Americans were texting, making calls, or using a handheld cell phone while driving during the daytime”. That is a scary amount of distracted drivers. If you drive in North America, it seems pretty likely that you must be one of the culprits since it is so wide spread. What are you going to do about your behavior?

Apparently, between 2001 to 2007, an estimated 16,000 distracted drivers were killed in the U.S. because of texting or using a cell phone. The numbers sharply increased after 2005, as cell phone subscriptions rose. This sounds like a no brainer. People are dying, simply because they don’t have their mind on the road. I haven’t found the statistics for Alberta yet, but I am sure that distracted drivers in Alberta are just as much of a problem.Everyone needs to be proactive, not just with their teenage son and daughter, but with their own actions. I’ve texted behind the wheel. I have to stop. Right now. What are you going to do?

More recently, Alberta legislation has been seriously considering passing laws to punish those who drive while distracted, and this includes texting while behind the wheel, as well as any cell phone use. There are valid reasons for laws that restrict electronic device usage by drivers, and everyone should be willing to save lives and property damage by going along with the law.

I myself have always been fascinated with bizare text messaging deaths. While it does at first seem improbable, text messaging can cause your death, and not only from driving distractedly. It can also lead to painful events if you don’t forward a texting chain letter. That’s right, not only do you receive legitimate and incredibly important life altering messages by text on your cell phone. You can also receive chain letters, junk mail texts and spam texts. Beware of the consequences, if you should happen to just delete that chain text…

Driving while distracted by texting seems like it is just as bad as driving while impaired by lack of sleep. Every year many Alberta drivers hit the ditch, other vehicles, and wildlife because they were foggy with sleep deprivation. What’s the difference between being unaware of your surrounding because you are texting or because your eyes were shut for a few seconds? A car crash is a car crash, even when it is no ‘accident’.

A vehicle incident that happens when you are watching a movie while driving is definitely no ‘accident’ either. This is negligence, operating a motor vehicle while impaired by stupidity. There is no way a person can claim that they didn’t know better than watching a movie while driving. The only way a person could be more negligent would be to talk or text on the cell phone, while eating, while watching a movie on your laptop computer, while driving. Alberta’s Worst Driver, here we come!

Over the years, I’ve witnessed some pretty stupid driver behavior on Alberta highways. More than once I’ve seen men with shaving cream on their faces, driving and using the rear view mirror to shave with a bladed razor. Women use that same mirror to put on various makeup items behind the wheel. These people need to get a life and use their time more efficiently. The rest of us take care of our personal grooming in the comfort of our homes, not in the comfort of our vehicles while traveling above the speed limit on a busy road. Why should these people risk the lives of others that they share the road with, just because they can’t be bothered to get up early enough?

Everyone eats and drinks coffee or other beverages while driving. It’s pretty common to pass someone on the road chowing down on some sort of food, and that’s fine with me. With the use of common sense, I don’t really see a problem with that. Of course, extremely messy foods can spill and cause a distraction that could end up spilling blood on the highway too. It remains to be seen how far the law will go. Eating an apple behind the wheel seems much less hazardous to me than eating any sort of foods that require dip, for example.

What I do have a problem with is blatant stupidity. I recently saw a driver with a laptop precariously perched on her dash, watching a movie. There is so many things wrong with this that I can barely understand the thought processes that led to this. First of all, with the screen of the computer in the way, how in the world could anyone properly see the road ahead? This was a fairly big screen, not just a little netbook, so vision was indeed impaired. Second, what if she hit a bump and it fell on her or slid and hit the floor? Almost anyone would swerve and possibly get in trouble if their laptop fell down while they were watching it. And third, why in the world would anyone think it’s okay to watch a movie while they are driving?

To make matters worse, when this person was first spotted watching a movie while driving her vehicle, she was also talking on her phone, and eating! This activity has to seen as hazardous by anyone. No matter how good of a driver you think you are, you can’t react properly to road hazards if your viewing area through the windshield is reduced, your brain is preoccupied with a movie, you are having a conversation on your cell phone, and you’re eating. Even Chuck Norris can’t pull this one off!

Seeing this horrible example of thoughtlessness made me wonder if there isn’t a problem with multitasking. These days, everyone seems to think they can’t live without being plugged into some sort of electronic device at all times. In our society, it is pretty common to see people of all ages texting and walking, texting and driving, textng and eating, texting and talking. Couples can be seen texting while sitting opposite each other at a restaurant, silent except for the clicking of tiny buttons.  It boggles the mind. Are people texting while they make love too? I have no doubt that somewhere right now, a bride to be has interrupted her own wedding ceremony because a text came in on her crackberry. And of course, there will be a pall bearer somewhere that has to drop his end of the load because his iPhone just let him know the all important text god is calling his name.

It seems to me incredibly lame that no one is capable of driving from one point to another and maintaining full concentration on the road. Alberta drivers aren’t the only ones that text and drive, it is a wide spread problem. I wonder, how many people have died from texting while driving? But driving is only one part of our lives that are affected by this need to keep oneself preoccupied. Most people can’t stand silence, can’t be alone, and seem even afraid of it. The claim they are “bored”, but I think that really they are afraid. Afraid that without all of this technology, without texting, and without constant activity, they will be alone with themselves.The majority of people must not like themselves very much if they are so afraid to be alone with their own thoughts. Why else would they not even be able to quit texting and driving?

Prove me wrong. When you drive down the road, put your cell phone down and concentrate on the road. Especially if you are sharing a road with me in Alberta, Canada. I don’t want some lousy distracted driver causing an accident that might kill me, my wife, my children, or anyone else I know. I’m sure you don’t want to be responsible for killing anyone either, so please strap on a pair and quit it. And for the love of Pete, don’t watch a movie while driving. That’s just silly, as well as dangerous.

For instance, Grenade Lite. If it’s the free version they attach the word Lite to it, and charge varying amounts of money to upgrade to the full flavoured version. Unfortunately for them, I’m cheap as a monkey so I never upgrade. Anyways, you slide your finger across the screen to pull the pin out of the grenade and a few seconds later, it “explodes”. Wow. Problem with this app? When you pull the pin on a real grenade, the handle flies off. Anyone that has watched Avatar could easily verify that even futuristic CG grenades work this way. The programmers of this app didn’t even figure out how a grenade works before they made their crappy app, or CRAPP. And, it really has no point. Its not like I’m going to throw my phone to fake a grenade, so I gotta hold it and let it “explode”. That’s not how we did it in the army.

Yeah, I’ve downloaded farting apps, apps that shoot virtual on screen guns, an app that loads a new insult every time you shake the phone, and one where a cow moos at you every time you talk. These were all Crapps. I had one app that just shouts “Woooooo!” every time you push the button. It makes you glad we are improving the universe with such important and functional technological advances.

But then there are all the super useful apps. Like eReader, which lets me read books anywhere and for a lot less money each than a paper book. Or Pocket Wikipedia, which allows me to win arguments on the go with those who don’t have all the facts at their fingertips. And how about Flixter, which allows me to easily find out movies playing and showtimes at local theaters. And lets not forget that I can even get phonecalls! That’s right, not only can I do all that other stuff but I can receive calls, make calls access voicemails, and even phone 911 from my iPhone. Not to mention texting. And of course, I am never one of those distracted texting drivers. I make handsfree calls with bluetooth while on the road.

What self respecting Hi Tech Redneck wouldn’t want to pack around a dozen ebooks and at least two gun apps?

Ernie once wrote about The ultimate monster, a werewolf/vampire/zombie hybrid. I gotta tell yah, this idea of a WereZombPire really freaks me out. Can you imagine a hairy monstrosity bending over to bite your neck, and one of his rotten fingers falls right off his paw into your face? Or would he be after your brains, and then change his mind and go for the neck? Can you stop howling at the moon and just kill me and get it over with, already! If you put too many undead superpowers in one critter, it just seems unmanageable. When he changes back from werewolf, is he still a VampZombie or is he human? Does he shuffle along, bumping into walls aimlessly, or is he a “fast” zombie? Can it go outside in the sunlight? And, is it into necrobestiality?

As Ernie pointed out, who would be capable of creating a monster like this?  The zombie part would be potentially useful in controlling your undead beastie, but what would be this evil genius’ overall goal? World domination? You would need an army of these things… Or do they infect victims with WVZ cell virus and you become a rotting hairy bloodsucker in short order? It would be a good idea to read up on the possibility of a zombie apocalypse just in case this kind of thing ever happens.

Then of course we get to the Evil Dead, and it turns out that the Evil Dead are Pretty Good Singers. We are both long time fans of this particular undead franchise. I mean, who wouldn’t love a guy who cuts off his own hand and attaches a mean ‘ole chainsaw to the stump, to fight demon infested zombies? With lines like “Wait. Its a trick. Get an axe!” you just can’t go wrong. While I never got to see the musical, Ernie gave it a great review. The evil dead are worse than a regular zombie. If a demon gets into you, you go bad. There doesn’t have to be a bite or wound, they just fly around trying to get you in their insubstantial form, until they do.

One thing I’ve always wondered is, how do zombies move around when its minus 30 C outside? Do they freeze solid and thaw out in the spring, or are they full of some sort of necro antifreeze? I’m betting that today in Alberta, all the zombies are frozen stiff and I can put my necro sledge away for a a bit.

Oh, and the name of the post is not a reference to wolf hair. Also, I probably won’t shed any light on the subject. More likely I’m muddying the waters and confusing predictions, just like Alice is blocked by Jacob and his friend.

Before I start, I should point out that I read all the books plus watched both movies. My daughter convinced me to read the first book, and I was hooked. I got the rest of them and read nonstop until I was done the series. It isn’t my usual type of reading, but I loved it.

Many of the people commenting online about this don’t seem to have any knowledge of the storyline at all, judging from their comments on message boards:

“well i think it’s half necro, and half beastiality
Necro-Beastiality?”

“ok. from a sci-fi book lover. vampires are not animals, and they are UNdead. so it would be neither bestiality nor necrophilia.”

Well the first comment is just missing the boat entirely. There are no werewolf vampire combos available for Bella to get the hots for. The second comment shows a complete lack of the storyline as well. Bella has to chose between a vampire or a werewolf, people! Didn’t you watch the trailer at least?

Is a love life with a vampire necrophilia? I don’t think so. My understanding of this deviant practice is that individuals are turned on by the ultimate control of a motionless, unresisting, nonthreatening partner. This does not describe a mobile creature that can barely resist ripping into you to suck out your life force. So technically it might be necrophilia in a way because vampires have no life. But in practice it is obviously a different situation.

Same thing goes for bestiality and werewolves. Bella is attracted to Jacob, and was before she knew he was able to change shape. There is no indication whatsoever that she is all hot and bothered about dogs, wolves, or any other furry critter. Bestiality is usually with farm animals, because again, just like dead bodies, they’re easy. Most of these sexual deviants have issues with rejection and fear. A real guy or gal will be too threatening. Let’s tie up Bessie and get a stool! Werewolves could potentially reject you in a very bloody fashion, but Bessie already puts up with milking, so how much dignity does she really have?

Anyone else have thoughts on this?